i do or please dont

"I Do" or "Please Don't" With the recent decision by the Hawaii courts
regarding the legalization of marriage between same-sex couples, a
political debate across the United States has begun. Many people
believe that this is a monstrous step to legalizing same-sex unions
country wide, especially since legal tradition recognizes marriages
performed in other states as binding within every other state, but also
because Hawaii is known for it's liberal, ground-breaking first steps that
the other states often follow the model of. If the states have any will,
however, they will not fold to the pressure put on them by this state and
the gay rights groups, they will continue to not recognize a man and man
or a woman and woman as a man and wife. What is marriage
anyway? Isn't it the union of two people who love each other to prove
their commitments to one another for the future? Yes, but there is more.
Webster's Dictionary defines marriage as: "a) the state of
being joined together as husband and wife, b) the state of joining a man
to a woman as her husband or a woman to a man as his wife."Legally,
however, marriage is more than just a statement of love. Marriage comes
with economic and legal benefits that one cannot receive alone. For
example, joint parental custody, insurance and health benefits, the ability
to file joint tax returns, alimony and child support, and inheritance of
property and visitation of a partner or a child in the hospital. In fact, the
Hawaii Commission on Sexual Orientation itself concluded that denial of
marriage licenses to same-sex couples deprived applicants of these legal
and economic benefits. So, are homosexuals fighting for the right of
marriage to state their love as the gay rights groups suggest or are they
pushing for the right of marriage because of the many benefits that come
with it? The answer is obvious - they are fighting for the benefits that
come along with marriage. If they were fighting for love, then where
would we stop these "feelings?" If homosexuals were allowed to marry
because they love each other and they consent, then couldn't a pedophile
marry a younger child as long as both parties fully consented? If

homosexuals were allowed to marry because they love each other, then
couldn't one man marry many wives because he loved each one and they
each loved him? If homosexuals were allowed to marry because they
love each other, then couldn't a son and his mother, or even a brother
and a brother, marry because they love each other? As one member of
the Episcopal Laity Group said, "a line must be drawn and it must never
be crossed. Marriage is for a man and a woman, and that's the way
marriage will always be." The gay rights' activists claim that this denial
of love, in the form of marriage, is a form of discrimination. These gay
rights' activists claim that this denial of love is similar to when slavery was
being defended, women's voting rights were being denied, or even more
specifically and more related, the anti-miscegenation laws of a few
decades back. This is clearly an attempt at tugging at the nation's heart
chords by comparing the struggle for same-sex unions to several notable,
if not the most notable, equality struggles in the history of the United
States. The comparison to the defense of slavery or the denial of
women's voting rights by gay right's groups is simply unfounded.
Homosexuality has never been considered morally "good," and it is a
tremendous jump from saying that black-skinned people should work for
white-skinned people just because of skin color or women can't vote just
because of sex to saying that homosexuals can't marry just because of
their sexual habits. There is a clear distinction. First of all, Colin Powell
once noted that skin color (and gender in this case) and sexual behavior
are completely different and incomparable. Skin color and gender are
born into, and they have absolutely no effect on conduct or character,
sexual behavior on the other hand, has everything to do with character,
morality, and society's basic rules of conduct. If anything, homosexuality
is comparable to smokers, compulsive gamblers, pornography fanatics,
sex addicts, and pedophiles because these are all people whose traits
(whether inborn or not) directly effect society. This also directly relates to

interracial marriages because a person's skin color does not produce a
certain effect on conduct or character. If polled at the time of the
respective movement (anti-slavery, women's rights, or interracial
marriages), a majority of the United States population would have
supported the movements (population includes those who are directly
involved), but in the United States today, over 2/3rds of the population are
against same-sex marriage (according to national polls run by Newsweek
and CNN). On top of that, along with marriage goes the assumption of
sexual activity. The sexual activity of one homosexual with another
(sodomy) is illegal in many states and allowing gays to marry would be
turning a head to this illegal act. Whether sodomy is illegal or not, it is
still practiced, claim the gay right's activists. While this is concedable,
they also say that monogamous relationships are safer in the homosexual
community than polygamous relationships. This is one of those
statements that sounds good, because it is true in the heterosexual
community, but the facts prove otherwise, because the homosexual
community is not the heterosexual community. The general feeling
among gay right's activists is that with the threat of AIDS and other
diseases among promiscuous, homosexual men, it is a "societal good" to
encourage homosexual monogamy. However, in cities where
homosexual monogamy is already being encouraged, AIDS and other
sexually-transmitted diseases are actually soaring! (Survey from the
Centers of Disease Control report by Associated Press, "HIV Found in 7
Percent Gay Young Men: Education Fails to halt Spread," The
Washington Times, February 11, 1996, p A-3; Michael Warner, "Why Gay
Men Are Having Risky Sex," Village Voice, New York, January 31, 1995,
Vol. XL., No. 5) AIDS is most likely transmitted in unsafe sex acts, and
an English study recently published that the most unsafe sex acts occur
in homosexual steady relationships. Men in steady relationships
practiced more anal intercourse and oral-anal intercourse than those

without a steady partner. Said one former homosexual, William Aaron,
"in the gay life, fidelity is almost impossible. . . the gay man must be
constantly on the lookout for new partners . . . the most homophile
'marriages' are those where there is an arrangement between the two to
have affairs on the side . . ." (OUT Magazine) So, the myth that
homosexual marriage will decrease the number of gay AIDS patients
because of less promiscuity is completely unfounded. The myth by these
gay right's activists show how common sense in the heterosexual
community must not be applied as common sense in the homosexual
community, and vice versa, because they are two different communities.
In fact, the gay right's activists use of this myth simply shows how they
want to play on the heterosexual community's fear of AIDS in order to
gain something advantageous for themselves. The fear of AIDS,
discrimination, and denial of love are all tactics used by those in support
of same-sex unions, but clearly all of them are ineffective arguments
when examined. In it painfully obvious that the only advantage to
same-sex unions for homosexuals is the legal and economic benefits, but
it is at this point that the homosexuals are receiving favoritism rather than
equality. When two people are allowed to marry just because of legal
and economic reasons, regardless of whether or not they are marrying in
the traditional sense, it is clearing being discriminatory against those in
the heterosexual community who are marrying for love. It is giving gays
an advantage rather than equality. Homosexual unions should not be
allowed in the United States, and as a representative of St. Athanasius
Roman Catholic Church said, "marriage is a privilege not a
right."INTERVIEWEESEpiscopal Laity Group, 1-800-307-7609St.
Anthanasius Roman Catholic Church, 703-759-4555